Apple adds AirPrint, illustrations, collections with iBooks update
Apple on Wednesday updated its iBooks application for the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch, adding the ability to place titles into collections, and send documents to AirPrint-compatible printers.
iBooks 1.2 (iTunes link) is a free update available on the App Store. The 15.2MB file requires iOS 3.2 or later.
New features in version 1.2, according to Apple, include:
Experience fully illustrated books, from children's picture books to beautifully designed art books, available for download in the iBookstore.
Organize your books and PDFs into personal Collections. Swipe left or right to jump between Collections.
Print PDF documents and notes you've written in iBooks using AirPrint.
iBooks now fits more words per page by automatically hyphenating text, available only on iOS 4.2 or later.
iBooks was last updated in June, when Apple added PDF support for the e-reading software. It also added new ways to bookmark, and gave more font selections.
iBooks 1.2 (iTunes link) is a free update available on the App Store. The 15.2MB file requires iOS 3.2 or later.
New features in version 1.2, according to Apple, include:
Experience fully illustrated books, from children's picture books to beautifully designed art books, available for download in the iBookstore.
Organize your books and PDFs into personal Collections. Swipe left or right to jump between Collections.
Print PDF documents and notes you've written in iBooks using AirPrint.
iBooks now fits more words per page by automatically hyphenating text, available only on iOS 4.2 or later.
iBooks was last updated in June, when Apple added PDF support for the e-reading software. It also added new ways to bookmark, and gave more font selections.
Comments
Print out books you buy on the store? Pretty surprised book authors allowed this.
I'm pretty sure printing is for PDF's and your notes only.
The content of the store is not even poor so far, really no back catalogue ? a huge gap between the free public domain titles (75 - 2000 years old) and "current" titles. Most great modern literature written between 1930 and the 1990s is completely absent. The few titles that do exist, have obviously been digitized using OCR software, received no editing whatsoever and contain tons of errors. No reason to waste money on that yet...
No idea about the situation elsewhere, but here it is definitely not the app that holds back iBooks' success. It is the best ebook app available.
The content of the store is not even poor so far, really no back catalogue ? a huge gap between the free public domain titles (75 - 2000 years old) and "current" titles. Most great modern literature written between 1930 and the 1990s is completely absent. The few titles that do exist, have obviously been digitized using OCR software, received no editing whatsoever and contain tons of errors. No reason to waste money on that yet...
Much agreed, iBooks is a great app but the limited content seriously holds it back. Couldn't find the book I wanted, so had to download it from Waterstones and go through Adobe DRM just to read it on my iPhone. Thank God for DeDRM!
• Collections was the only aspect making my organization a nightmare, but that is now somewhat resolved. I’d like to be able to organize via iTunes and edit the meta-data of non-protected items within iBooks.
• Pages export to EPUB is simple, albeit a little limited in scope, but usable for converting documents.
• iBookstore selection is paltry. I’ve tried using Kindle from my iPad. They have the content but I hate being pushed to Safari (which I understand) and then seeing the common website for Amazon.com without it defaulting to a specialized Kindle bookstore to make the shopping pleasant. Because of this I’ve bought no Kindle books for my iPad.
Don't care since I can't use AirPrint without compatible printer! How about you get busy adding AirPrint support into Snow Leopard like you promised instead of wasting time updating apps with a feature I can't even use yet! FAIL!
There are plenty of places to ways to get AirPrint working on Mac OS X 10.6.5. Here is one such site.As for this ?promise? there are other reasons why it was removed. Such as patent rights trumping pinky swears in a court of law.
I also want iBooks for my Mac. Maybe that is wishing for to much.
I also want iBooks for my Mac. Maybe that is wishing for to much.
I would not be too surprised, if this would be one of the first free apps in the Mac OS AppStore...
I would not be too surprised, if this would be one of the first free apps in the Mac OS AppStore...
I'm hoping for that, too. I'm also hoping for Apple to make it easy for iOS devs to make it fairly easy to make a Mac app from an iOS codebase. For instance, sometimes I just want to play Angry Birds on my Mac.
I'm hoping for that, too. I'm also hoping for Apple to make it easy for iOS devs to make it fairly easy to make a Mac app from an iOS codebase. For instance, sometimes I just want to play Angry Birds on my Mac.
Isn't this what Launchpad in Lion will be? The iOS applications on the Mac?
One thing I noticed that will be a big annoyance for people who plan to use iBooks to download cookbooks: You can't make notes like you can on a regular book, or at least I couldn't on the sample of "Ad Hoc at Home."
When you highlight text, your only options are Dictionary and Search and not the usual Copy, Dictionary, Highlight, Note and Search that you get with other books.
So if that recipe needs more salt, you'll have to just remember.
PDFs don't work at all in this update. They only show the first 29 pages (can't go beyond that even if the PDF has hundreds more), each page has an incorrect preload image from a different (wrong) PDF, they all have the same thumbnail on the shelves, and they all move simultaneously when you try to move one. iBooks 1.2.1 better be out soon.
I just tried to open a few of our internal QM manuals (one over 600, the other over 800 pages) after reading your post... they both open fine and I can display all pages (I did not try every single page, but several pages from the beginning, the middle and the end of both documents). Maybe your device is due for a restart?
I just tried to open a few of our internal QM manuals (one over 600, the other over 800 pages) after reading your post... they both open fine and I can display all pages (I did not try every single page, but several pages from the beginning, the middle and the end of both documents). Maybe your device is due for a restart?
I thought the same thing, so I did. Nada. Maybe I'll desync all the books from iTunes and then resync. Post'll be edited once that's done.
Edit: Ah, they're fixed. Weirdest animation ever for that, but they work. Sweet.